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Thursday, June 1, 2017

As floodwaters recede in Sri Lanka after monsoon rains killed at least
202 people and forced more than 80,00 from their homes, questions are
being asked over the government’s failure to put in place preparedness
measures that could have saved lives.

The death toll could still rise after the storm lashed the country at
the weekend, causing the worst flooding in 15 years. The United Nations
says 96 people remain unaccounted for, and more rains are forecast for
this week that could trigger additional landslides.

“We seem to reinvent the wheel with every disaster,” said Mahieash Johnney, a spokesman for the Sri Lanka Red Cross Society.

As the monsoon storm approached the west coast of this teardrop-shaped
island nation off the southern tip of India, the Red Cross put 10 of its
district branches on high alert, ensuring that staff and volunteers
would be prepared to assist once the wind and rains hit.

Government agencies, however, took no preemptive measures.

The deployment of disaster response teams, mainly from the armed forces,
came only after the floods and landslides were reported, said Pradeep
Kodippilli, director for early warning at the Disaster Management
Center.

The DMC is the main government agency that oversees and coordinates
early warnings and disaster preparedness. Yet, the agency did not
broadcast any warnings before the storm arrived to communities in areas
that were vulnerable to floods and landslides.

Kodippilli said the DMC relies on information from by the Irrigation
Department on floods and the National Building Research Organisation on
landslides, but his agency received no information from either body.

Nor did reports from the Meteorological Department predict the intensity
of the approaching deluge, according to DMC director general G L S
Senadeera.

He told IRIN that, on 25 May, the DMC received forecasts for the normal
amount of monsoon rain, about 150 milimetres for the following 24 hours.
Instead, 550 milimeters of rain fell in some areas between 9 pm on 25
May and 5 am on 26 May.

“The low pressure system just changed so suddenly, there was no time for
anyone to communicate, issue warnings or effect evacuations,” he said.
“It was so sudden and quick.”

As the disaster unfolded, the DMC began sending out mass text messages
to warn of floods in different areas. The Irrigation Department and the
National Building Research Organisation also issued alerts. But no
alerts were issued, and no evacuations were carried out before the storm
arrived.

Lacking technology

Lalith Chandrapala, director general of the Meteorological Department,
said the department doesn’t have Doppler radar capability, which allows
for the accurate forecasting of the direction and velocity of storms.

For the radar to be effective, stations would have to be located around
the country. Senadeera said that Sri Lanka had only one such station,
but it had broken down. The government plans to set up two stations with
Japanese funding within the next two years, he said.

M. Thuraisingham, director general of the Irrigation Department, said
the department does not have the technology to predict flooding in most
areas. Sensors that warn of rising waters have been installed on a few
rivers, including two that burst their banks this week.

“We have flood sensors on the rivers and that is what we use,” he told
IRIN, adding that the department had been able to warn some communities
downstream.

That didn’t help communities upstream like Udugama, a town on the Gin Gaga River, 35 kilometres inland from the west coast.

“There was no warning, it was raining during the night of the 25 and 26th and
suddenly the floods came,” said Lalith Perera, at a Buddhist temple
where his family had fled, because it sits on high ground. “We had to
run with whatever we could grab.”

At a 30 May disaster assessment meeting attended by IRIN in the southern
town of Matara, Minister of Law and Order Sagala Rathnayake admitted
that the government had failed to warn people before the disaster
unfolded.

“It is the duty of the Departments of Meteorology and Irrigation to
record and maintain rainfall figures, but there has been some sort of
breakdown in the reports getting through to us,” he said.

Bangladesh and Myanmar

After lashing western Sri Lanka, the storm continued on into the Bay of
Bengal, picking up strength as it went. It was dubbed Cyclone Mora by
the time it hit the Bangladesh coast, with winds of 120 kilometres per
hour and gusts up to 148 kilometres per hour. The government there has
reported two deaths.

Bangladesh was far more proactive than Sri Lanka in preparing for the
storm. Authorities advised people in the districts of Cox’s Bazar and
Chittagong to move to 538 cyclone shelters, and they put cash and food
stocks aside, the UN reported.

The day before the storm made landfall, the government evacuated almost 300,000 people, said the
office of UN Resident Coordinator Robert Watkins. It is unclear if
Rohingya were evacuated from camps where they have been living since
fleeing repression and violence in neighbouring Myanmar.

UNICEF said that
about 10,000 huts in two Rohingya camps had been completely
flattened. Along with 32,000 registered refugees, about 400,000
unregistered Rohingya live in Cox’s Bazar District. They include about
74,000 who arrived since the Myanmar military launched counterinsurgency
operations that have been accompanied by accusations of severe rights
abuses in Maungdaw, a district on the frontier with Bangladesh.

Across the border, Rohingya who have living in camps since fleeing their
homes during violence in 2012, were also disproportionally affected.

The UN aid coordination body, OCHA, said relief workers were still
assessing the storm’s impact, but initial reports suggested “a
significant number of longhouses and other camp infrastructure,
including latrines and temporary learning spaces, have been destroyed or
severely damaged.”

Just days before Cyclone Mora struck, OCHA highlighted the vulnerability
of the camps, which were built to provide temporary accommodation, but
“are now in a bad state of repair”.

ap/jf/oa

(TOP PHOTO: Residents of Udugama wade through flood waters on 27
May, a day after 550mm of rain forced a nearby river to burst its
banks.)